Written in Heaven

A verse of scripture that continually challenges me is the call in Romans 12 to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” When I first encountered that verse, I thought it meant simply this: don’t sin. As it has implanted itself in my mind, I’ve come to realize that it’s much more than that. The call here is to transform our minds into the mind of Christ. That means we think like Jesus, we act like Jesus, we talk like Jesus, we respond as Jesus would, we see others as Jesus does, etc. The list is endless, the call is great.

One area where my mind has been transformed lately is this idea of suffering. In Philippians 3, Paul is getting in the face of the church at Philippi and ends this section in verse 10 with this statement: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain the resurrection from the dead.”

This is an amazing concept. To be honest though, when I first read it, it went something like this: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection,” (Oh yeah! Sign me up for that! That’s me I want that power too!) “and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings” (Um, not so sure about this part, but that power of the resurrection thing is still pretty cool…) “becoming like him in his death, and so somehow to attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Yeah that resurrection would be awesome!)

Suffering is not something I’m quick to sign up for. I would wager to say most people aren’t. However God has pointed out to me several stories recently about people who have gladly suffered for the message of Jesus. The most recent was a guy who lived in Africa who was martyred by a gruesome decapitation with dull knives. Not only is the story available to hear, but there is a video of this martyr that the killers took to use as a threat to the Christians in the area – “You keep talking about Jesus, we’ll keep doing this!”

If this martyr weren’t amazing enough, the story behind it certainly is. This guy woke up every morning and his prayer time was this: “What do you want me to do for you today Lord?” Every day he received his marching orders. The day he died, he reported to his friends minutes before his death that the Lord had told him that he needed to lay down his life so that the word of God may be spread. Minutes later without warning, Muslim radicals stormed his house, drug him onto the street and cut off his head. Even more amazing was this man didn’t resist a bit. He didn’t fight it or struggle or even make a sound. In those moments, he followed his orders perfectly.

God continually punches me in the gut with stories like this. Regularly God asks me to tell someone about Him or invite someone to church and I hesitate for some reason that I rationalize in my head. Meanwhile, God is asking other people to suffer greatly for the sake of the kingdom and they oblige without question, while I hem and haw around debating whether or not I really should go ring my neighbor’s doorbell.

Maybe that’s not you, but I’m guessing it’s more of us than it’s not. We have this opportunity before us to change our world for Jesus. Every day we have these moments where we get to make the name of Jesus famous without much consequence. Do
we? What’s God calling you to do that your waiting on? Whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it’s not to die so, DO IT NOW! Those words are as much for me as anyone, but let’s do something with this freedom we are afforded. Let’s change the world!